Santa Monica, California, USA
The Santa Monica High School-Discovery Building designed by James Mary O’Connor, John Dale, and John Ruble of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners with HED for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District takes pedagogy as the base of its design, providing flexible spaces in a variety of sizes and formats, supporting different modes of learning.
Kindergarten through 12th-grade education is rapidly evolving in significant social, cultural, and pedagogical directions.
Santa Monica High School (SAMOHI) is transitioning in terms of how pedagogy relates to space: from classroom-only accommodation to a diverse spectrum of learning suites and labs complemented by multi-functional “commons” areas.
This evolving condition led to the Discovery Building—a 260,000 square feet addition to the 3,000-student campus—an ideal example of the Open Building approach.
For its forward-thinking design, Santa Monica High School-Discovery Building has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Awards Honorable Mention by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
To fully understand the progressive program goals of the school and the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the team’s design process was based on a series of workshops with teaching and administrative staff .
These meetings reinforced a hybrid approach to the use of open commons versus discrete spaces.
In contrast to single and double-loaded corridor layouts common in California, the five-level Discovery Building has deep floor plates that allow the clustering of spaces and activities in a greater variety of sizes and formats, supporting different modes of learning.
Large classrooms, up to 1,100 square feet, are able to accommodate multiple activities simultaneously.
The building wraps around an open entry court with cascading stairs and bleachers for informal gatherings.
The building is designed as a “loft,” with a flexible, open column grid, raised floor for air supply, power and data, and non-load bearing walls which can be reconfigured over time.
Sustainable features include “living” green walls, displacement ventilation, and roof top photovoltaic and solar thermal arrays.
The classrooms are filled with natural light and many have operable glass walls to connect to commons areas.
The building contains 31 classrooms with two adjoining commons, physical science labs, collaboration classrooms, medically fragile suites, multipurpose rooms, teacher’s resource room, computer lab, admin offices, campus café, dining facility, kitchen, distribution center for SMMUSD, rooftop, aquatic center with 50-meter swimming pool.
Project: Santa Monica High School Discovery Building
Design Architects: Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners
Lead Architects: James Mary OConnor, John Dale, and John Ruble
Associate Architects: HED
General Contractor: McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.
Client: Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District
Photographers: Inessa Binenbaum
